Daily Ramblings

Giordano done for the year, Vermette and Timonen debut for Chicago and more...

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For a trade deadline in which all of the big names had already been moved yesterday was still surprisingly busy. I won't lie though, I slept through a bunch of it. One of those rare years when you actually get sick on deadline day.

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The biggest news to come out yesterday wasn’t a trade but an injury report. Mark Giordano is done for th

One of the big stories of the summer has been the signing of P.K. Subban to an eight-year, $72-million contract with the Montreal Canadiens. Judging by the amount of activity discussing the topic on the forum, this is clearly a controversial contract signed by a controversial defenseman.

The contract itself is massive to say the least. Its length is the maximum allowed and the cap hit of $9 million is the highest among all defensemen by a fairly wide margin. Subban only trails Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin in cap hit among all NHL players.

In order to earn such a contract, Subban became a true star over the last two years. After finishing in a tie for first among all defensemen in points in 2012-13 and capturing the Norris trophy, he finished tied for fifth this year before helping the Canadiens reach the Eastern Conference final. Beyond his obvious points-only value, Subban also offers excellent multi-category numbers, most notably in PIM, hits, blocks, PPP and SOG.

Cap league value

Despite their inflated cap hits, the stars of the NHL are still worth the money in cap leagues. Obviously, the goal is to build a team that can produce more fantasy points than all of your opponents. Your stars will offer a ton of this production while occupying a single roster spot which will clearly help you achieve that goal.

At $9 million, Subban is at the top of the heap but not to the point where he becomes too expensive to own in most league setups. He remains a star that can carry your fantasy team’s blueline and has probably not reached his peak yet. But where does he rank among hockey’s star defenders?

Sample of stars

In order to look into this deeper without going too deep in the weeds, we will look at the eight defensemen that potted 50 or more points last year to do a cap hit comparison. Not only will we look at point output, but also peripheral stats for blueliners producing at or close to the elite level.

What really stands out in this list is the difference in cap hit between Subban and some star-level defenders producing equally. The same story will repeat itself in offense-heavy formats as well as multi-cat. There are simply other top-level options out there that cost much less.

Over time, the other star defensemen will have their current contracts expire and will obviously cash in, in some cases at a much higher cap hit than Subban’s $9 million. Unfortunately, that day is not coming any time soon. Among the defensemen listed above, only Yandle (2016), Wisniewski (2017), Hedman (2017) and Karlsson (2019) have their current deals expire before 2020. The full list of top paid defenders can be found here.

Clearly, Subban will remain the top paid defenseman for a while. In fantasy hockey time is an underrated factor in determining player value. Simply put, too much time will pass before Subban’s cap hit becomes more normal compared to his elite peers. This hurts his fantasy value.

Conclusion

Even though Subban’s new contract hurts his value among star defensemen, it does not mean he should not be owned. It just means that his trade value or draft position should be adjusted accordingly. If you can draft him in a good spot after the other top blueliners are gone, you can make it work by doing your homework and discovering cap bargains in your league format. Much like NHL teams, fantasy teams go beyond one single player. In cap leagues everything hinges on finding the right balance throughout the roster to combine good production with a legal budget.

Comments

Cap leagues, straight points, it gets pretty tough to have Subban. If you're in a multi-cat league, it gets a bit bettee. In a format that counted g, a, pts, hits, blocked shots, PM, PPP, SHP, +/- you'd only get 60% to 70% of the points required for that amount of cap space, on his career years. The problem may be even larger in the event that he had an injury.

Daily Ramblings

Giordano done for the year, Vermette and Timonen debut for Chicago and more...

*

For a trade deadline in which all of the big names had already been moved yesterday was still surprisingly busy. I won't lie though, I slept through a bunch of it. One of those rare years when you actually get sick on deadline day.

*

The biggest news to come out yesterday wasn’t a trade but an injury report. Mark Giordano is done for the year with a torn biceps. That’s one of those ones that’s so bad that I’m not even sure anyone benefits. I mean, Dennis Wideman, TJ Brodie and Kris Russell will all see more minutes to help pull up the slack but without Giordano there to help get that puck moving in the right direction, those minutes won’t be near as productive.